


In Transit/So Quite New

by janescott



Category: American Idol RPF
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-08-11
Updated: 2010-08-11
Packaged: 2017-10-11 01:16:09
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,059
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/106663
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/janescott/pseuds/janescott
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>These are short, so I'm posting them as one fic. In Transit was for this teamlambliff fic meme prompt: Adam/Tommy - That strange, in between time at the airport when you're waiting for your flight to start boarding, and the anticipatory feeling that comes with it. And So Quite New, which is the sequel, was for this prompt:</p>
            </blockquote>





	In Transit/So Quite New

**Author's Note:**

> NB: Obviously, nothing belongs to me. I'm just dressing up the paper dolls for a while ...

**In Transit**

Tommy grips the counter at the tiny Starbucks, tucked away in a corner of the airport, blinking and trying to swallow back a giant yawn.

His head is fuzzy, he can feel the scratch of the start of a cold in the back of his throat, and he's not sure where they are. Layover ... somewhere. A three-hour delay until their flight to – "Where are we going?" he asks Lisa, standing beside him and giving the girl behind the counter drink orders.

"Chicago," Lisa says tiredly without turning around, fumbling in her wallet for a credit card.

"Right." Chicago. Tommy blinks again, and the yawn catches him out this time. He feels the glare of the girl behind the counter, but can't muster the energy to care.

"Sorry," he mumbles anyway, as Lisa sorts the cardboard cups. "Coffee, coffee, coffee, tea, coffee," she says to herself, taking back the card and the receipt. "That's yours," she says, pushing a cup towards Tommy. "That's Adam's. Can I have a tray for the rest?" she asks the girl who begrudgingly puts an ugly grey divider on the counter.

Tommy picks up the cups, which are hot under his fingers but not burning. It's raining outside, whereverthefuck they are, and it's nice to feel warmth seeping into his hands.

Wherever it is, the airport is at least big enough for a Starbucks and a half-assed VIP lounge, with slightly more comfortable chairs than the main departure lounge, and at least the illusion of privacy.  
With Adam, the band, a couple of security guys and Adam's publicist, though, it's not long before it starts to feel crowded.

Monte is stretched out on a bank of chairs opposite Adam, who is sitting, hunkered down and staring out the window at the rain. Monte's been-there-and-done-this-shit enough to know to take your sleep when you can, but he stirs and mutters thanks when Lisa puts the coffee cup on the floor beside him before sitting down beside him.

LP comes back from the bathroom, taking another cup and sitting down by Monte's feet. He lifts the lid and inhales the steam, closing his eyes. Tommy hands Adam his tea and folds into the seat beside him, his brain thick and his eyes heavy enough that the tattoos on LP's arms look like they're moving on their own.

"Alright?" Adam asks softly, his voice husky and low. He's on vocal rest until the show tomorrow night and has been talking as sparingly as possible in one or two-word sentences, his phone an extension of his hand as he communicates with friends and family by text.

Tommy just nods and closes his eyes, cradling the coffee cup in both hands. He can hear the rain on the windows and the small shift-shuffle of Adam beside him, the almost-silent taptap of his fingers on the screen of his phone.

Images drift through Tommy's mind like dreams. His audition for the band. Working on the music video. The weight of Adam's back against his as they play off each other.

The AMAs. Weight again. Not just the weight of Adam's mouth on his, although that's still there too, but the weight of the bullshit Adam had to endure afterwards.

Twitter. Letterman. GMA. No. Cancelled.

Tommy starts awake, his heart thumping. He rubs at his eyes and takes a sip of the coffee, cooling rapidly, but there's enough warmth left in it that it's still just drinkable.

He glances at Adam who looks like he's actually fallen asleep in his chair, his face slack and his phone nearly sliding out of his hand. Tommy catches it before it can hit the floor and Adam stirs, blinking.

"Sorry," Tommy says. "Didn't mean to wake you. You were about to drop your phone."

Adam nods his thanks and takes a sip of his tea, pulling a face. "Cold," he says, putting the cup on the floor.

"How long?" he asks, meaning the flight, Tommy thinks, which was delayed.

"Two hours," Lisa answers from the other bank of chairs, her eyes closed, and, "Stop talking," opening her eyes long enough to mock-glare at Adam for a moment, who just pokes his tongue out at her before sighing and stretching, resettling in his chair, kicking his long legs out in front of himself restlessly and making a face at the rain.

"Want another one?" Tommy asks, picking up Adam's cup, intending to throw it in the wastebin at the end of the row, just to have something to do. Adam flicks a glance at Tommy, who blinks at the expression in them – blue, and intent and unreadable all at once. Tommy works a hand through his hair, digging hard into his scalp, trying to bring his mind back into focus.

Adam nods and smiles then, his expression clearing, and Tommy's relieved for some reason. He picks up everyone else's empty cups and asks if they want another one, but no. Just Adam.  
The lounge isn't cold or anything, but there's something about being so still for so long that makes Tommy shiver when he starts moving.

He gets Adam's tea from the same surly girl, and orders another coffee for himself, to have something warm to hold on to while they wait.

No one's moved when he gets back to the lounge and he feels, oddly, like he hasn't left at all. As though this is a continuation of the half-dream he was having before. He shakes it off and hands Adam his tea as he sits down.

Tommy's eyes catch the screen of Adam's phone and he half-smiles when he sees the pink and black blaze of Adam's Twitter home page. Adam just half-shrugs, like he's saying gotta do something to pass the time, and Tommy considers it for a minute, but it's too much effort to reach for his phone.

He settles back into his chair and takes a sip of his drink – hot this time – and waits for the caffeine to take hold, just a little bit, to shake off the thick feeling in his head. It's not long before the rain and the caffeine take their toll, and Tommy heads for the bathroom at the end of the lounge, oddly grateful for the sight of the white tiles under the sharp fluorescent lights.

He takes a piss, washes his hands and splashes his face with cold water, staring at himself for a minute, bracing his hands on the sink in front of him. He looks a little hollowed-out and pale in the harsh light, and he's managed to very successfully smudge whatever eyeliner was left after a long day of hotel rooms, car rides and this fucking waiting.

The door opens and Tommy turns his head, not really surprised to see Adam there.

"Here," he says, holding out an eyeliner pencil. "You look like shit."

Tommy just shakes his head as he takes the pencil. "Thanks, but I don't think it's going to help much," he says, uncapping it and leaning into the mirror, frowning a little.

"Let me," Adam says, taking the pencil back and putting a hand on Tommy's arm, gently urging him to lean against the wall.

"You shouldn't be talking," Tommy says, his mind muzzy. He's not sure whether it's the waiting, the sheer exhaustion, Adam being so close, or all three.

He can see the same shadows under Adam's eyes that are under his own and he can feel the quiet in-out of Adam's breathing as he studies Tommy's face for a moment.

Adam gently thumbs at the skin under Tommy's eye, pulling it down slightly, and Tommy relaxes back into the wall as he rolls his eye up. He's not used to other people doing this for him, but it feels kind of nice.

Adam works silently, his breath warming Tommy's cheek as he makes careful outlines and Tommy resists the urge to blink.

"There," Adam says, putting the pencil on the sink. "Done."

Tommy turns his head to look in the mirror, and he still looks the same, pale and tired, which makes the liner stand out on his eyelids, black, and stark against the whites of his eyes.

He turns his head back when Adam brushes a finger along his cheekbone and holds it up so Tommy can see what he's done. "Eyelash," Adam says. "Make a wish."

 

**So Quite New**  
Something shifts after that day at the airport. Tommy's more aware of Adam somehow – of his physical presence – in a different way; a way he had never considered. Not really.

He's aware of tiny almost-touches and seemingly accidental brushes of skin.

Crossing tarmacs at airports, it's the lightest feather-touch – an accident of skin as the back of Adam's fingers brush against Tommy's as they walk into grey terminal after grey terminal.

It's standing nearly shoulder-to-shoulder in hotel elevators. Tommy always has to look over because he's sure that Adam's arm is touching his, but it's not. They're always standing close, but definitely not touching.

It's an absent thumb brushing under Tommy's eye, smudging his liner, and Adam saying "You look tired. Should get some sleep," in the dressing room after a show, and it's Tommy wanting to tell Adam what he wished for that day at the airport, even though he doesn't really know himself.

It's a thousand tiny things that crowd into Tommy's head, and spark something unexpected in his blood. Unexpected, but not unwelcome, he admits to himself, late one night, staring in the mirror in the tiny tour bus bathroom as he methodically removes the stage makeup he somehow hadn't had time to do right after the show.

He cleans, and wipes carefully, feeling the slight pull of his callouses on his face, and wonders what Adam's skin would feel like under those same callouses: not feather-light touches this time: touches with intent; with purpose.

Where the memory of the touch doesn't fade after a few moments; where the touch is – not hard, but yes. Purposeful. Weighted.

Tommy shakes his head and splashes his face with cold water, the shock stopping his thinking process in its tracks. It's the only reason he can think of for why he opens the door when he hears a light knock, rather than call out to say he'll only be a minute.

But he snaps the lock back, which clicks loud in the relative silence, overlaying the harmony of the tyres rumbling along the road with a harsh, quick percussion: a beat that he can't get out of his head.

He opens the door, and there's Adam, with the same look on his face that Tommy can feel under his skin: Adam's eyes – his shifting, kaleidescope eyes – look almost black in the dull bathroom light.

Tommy thinks that maybe this should scare him: that this should be something sudden, and strange, but it's not somehow, and as Adam reaches out, not saying anything, just curling his hand around Tommy's wrist, tugging gently, Tommy finds himself moving forward at the same time, his centre of gravity shifting slightly.

And instead of being sudden, and strange, it feels like something that Tommy's been waiting for – maybe since the airport; maybe longer. At this point, with his pulse skittering out of time suddenly under Adam's fingers, it doesn't really matter.

The bus is quiet as it rolls along the road, the only sound the wheels going over and over the tarmac in a hypnotic rhythm, and the odd, out-of-sync huff of breath from Monte and LP; sound asleep with the long practice of catching rest where you can on the road.

And there's no way - no fucking way - they should both fit on one of the narrow bunk beds, but somehow they do. There's an interlocking of limbs, and a press/slide of skin-on-skin that pulls everything together, and makes it fall into place like figuring out the end of a story before the last pages are read.

Tommy presses his fingers into Adam's skin, and feels the give of it, the shadows and hollows that form and re-form; and it's like improvising on the best guitar riff ever: the song remains the same, but the shifts in the melody make it seem like flying.

They fall asleep like that – peaceful, sated and woven together like a new story; a new song; a new riff.


End file.
